


You Are Here

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Rest Stops And Gas Stations, Road Trips, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Mulder and Scully stop at a rest stop for some respite from their rental car's broken air conditioning.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	You Are Here

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Season 6  
> A/N: For suitablyaggrieved on tumblr.

Another month off the X-Files, another whistle-stop tour of the Midwest. It was August and the heat was miserable, pressing down like a cupped hand. They'd had to fly into Des Moines and drive south and the air conditioning in the rental car couldn't keep up. It had only been an hour. The sky blazed white and the glare set Scully's teeth on edge. She squinted behind her sunglasses and shook the fabric of her blouse surreptitiously. The silk was sticking to her skin. Mulder had rolled up his sleeves one at a time as he drove and undone all the buttons of his shirt. They'd tried opening the windows, but immediately rolled them up again as hot, humid air blasted in. Outside it was all hills and trees and the occasional town that seemed too far from the highway to stop in. 

They drove, saying nothing. The highway spun away under the wheels. Country music whispered from the radio until Scully turned it off. The air conditioning whirred and burbled. There was a death rattle from the vents. Scully held her hand up. There was barely a breath of air coming out. The mechanism coughed again and cool air puffed over her fingers. She could already tell it wasn't going to be enough. 

"There's a rest stop," Mulder said. His words sounded heavy. "I'm going to pull over. Maybe we can get something cold to drink." 

"Fine," Scully said from a distance. The car already felt stuffy. He signaled and pulled onto the long ramp, which wound under the highway and up the gentle curve of a hill. 

"I always thought the Midwest was supposed to be flat," Mulder said.

"Maybe there will be a breeze at the top," Scully said wistfully. 

They parked in front of a big building built out of pale cement bricks. Mulder abandoned propriety and shed his button-up, standing in his white undershirt. Scully wished she could strip down any further. At least she'd worn a skirt instead of pants. Large trees provided some shade to the sidewalk as they walked up the slant of it. Big polished bronze plaques gleamed in the sun. Even Mulder was too wilted to examine them. The glass doors of the welcome center slid open automatically. They took their sunglasses off in unwitting unison. To the right there was a large room, a desk and a bunch of racks of maps behind another glass door. To the left, there was a tiled hall with restrooms and vending machines with a huge map on the wall. "You are here," it declared with certainty. A star obscured their position. She could know her position or his velocity, never both.

Scully ducked into the restroom and dampened a paper towel in the long plastic trough of a sink. She dabbed her face and laid the paper towel on the back of her neck. It was cooler in here. Thick walls and small windows kept the heat out. They probably kept the tornadoes out too, she thought, as much as that was possible. There'd been a storm shelter sign above the restroom door. She stuck her wrists under the flow of water until it shut off automatically. At least she was a little cooler.

She emerged into the hall, her heels echoing on the concrete floor. Mulder was standing with his hands behind his back. 

"Pick one," he said. 

She reached out and tapped his right arm. He handed her a diet soda and produced an identical one from the other hand with a grin. 

"A little something to enjoy," he said. "The attendant said there's a scenic overlook. I'm not ready to get back in that car." 

"No," Scully agreed. She slipped her sunglasses back on. They walked across the parking lot through the rippling heat and down another sidewalk, following the signs. All she could see were trees and grass, nothing particularly scenic. Then they crested a little swell and a valley spread out below them. The fields were green and lush. It wasn't a remarkable view, nothing once-in-a-lifetime, but it was lovely all the same. There was a peace in it that Scully hadn't found in the jagged mountains of Montana or the stark light of the desert. She could hear a distant rustle of corn and the hum of a tractor engine. There was a breeze on this side of the hill, some trick of the local geography. It tugged at the silk of her shirt. She sighed in relief. Mulder ruffled his hair and tipped his face into the current of air. Scully pressed her sweating soda can against her throat. A drop or two trickled into her shirt, tracing an unerring path between her breasts.

There was a picnic table, its surface and attached benches made of a plastic-coated metal honeycomb grid. It was half in the shade. Scully pressed her fingers to it and shook her head. "Too hot," she said. "We'd get grilled."

"We can sit in the grass," Mulder said, venturing deeper into the shade of an enormous cottonwood tree. He scuffed through it with his shoe. "No rocks." 

Bugs, Scully thought, stains, twigs. But she eased herself down into the soft grass and leaned against the trunk of the tree. Mulder sat next to her and clinked his unopened can against hers. 

"Cheers," he said.

They popped the tabs of their sodas in unison. A cloud of carbon dioxide fogged out and the crackle of bubbles sounded like ice. Scully sipped at her soda. It was ambrosial, the most refreshing thing she'd ever tasted. The breeze wafted over them, brisk enough to dry the sweat on her forehead. She and Mulder sat quietly, enjoying the view, enjoying the moment. Scully kicked her heels off and wiggled her bare toes in the grass. 

"Summer should involve a beach," he said.

"I agree." She thought of sand between her toes, ice cream that always tasted faintly of salt, the cool rush of waves. She thought of submerging herself and opening her eyes, weighing the sting against the magical stained-glass underwater world. This was a very different landscape, but there was some link between them: the blank sky a bell jar balanced over the peaceful slopes of the valley. 

"I saw a sign for an Amish bakery," Mulder said. "Think they're farming some of that land down there?"

"Look for a horse and buggy," she murmured, as if it weren't too hot for anyone to be out in the fields. As if she wanted to encounter the Amish again. 

"No field of dreams out here either," Mulder said, taking another swallow of her soda. She watched his adam's apple bobble in the long line of his neck. He seemed shockingly undressed in his undershirt, as if she hadn't seen him in less. The bright white cotton made his skin looked bronzed. There was a haze of dirt on his polished shoes. 

"It's too hot for baseball," Scully said. "It's too hot for anything." 

"Nice right here, though," Mulder said, his eyes sliding sideways to her.

"Very nice," she agreed. "Could use a crop circle or two."

"Ah, Scully," he said, grinning. "If you kept up with the current research, you'd know crop circles are much more prevalent in the fall in this region."

"Oh, of course," she said gravely. She sipped at her soda again. 

"My theory is that the dried stalks look better than the green ones," Mulder said. 

"The aesthetics of the inexplicable," she murmured. "Mulder, I think you're onto something." 

They sat companionably, finishing their sodas. Scully's was lukewarm by the time she got to the bottom, but that felt like summer too, like the rare nights her family went out for hamburgers and all the Scully kids got root beer floats. Some memories lingered, she thought, stuffed into forgotten corners of her brain until a summer breeze brushed the dust off. It was nice to remember something that didn't make her spine stiffen and her heart race. Mulder probably didn't have the same luxury: his memories of idyllic summers with Samantha were all bleached at the edges by the shock of bright lights. But this would be something they could both recall with pleasure. A moment of respite and companionship. They were exiled, but they walked into the wilderness together. Or to the scenic outlook, depending on the day. 

Scully checked her watch. They had spent fifteen minutes or so sitting in the grass. They needed to get going — they had another two hours or so of driving ahead of them, no doubt bumping down gravel roads to find the latest farm on the FBI's watchlist and then back through their own cloud of dust to the motel. 

"Time to head out," Mulder agreed. He pushed himself up and offered her a hand. Scully let him brace his weight against hers and haul her to her feet. They were ballast enough to keep each other flying level, she thought, at least most of the time. The grass was already springing back where they had sat. She tucked her feet back into her shoes, steadying herself with her palm flattened against his arm. 

They trekked back into the welcome center for bottles of water, refreshed enough to read the brass plaques about settlers who had tried to establish utopian societies in the hills of Iowa. There were worse places, Scully thought. She and Mulder had made their own small efforts, in a way, carving out a quarter of an hour of perfect contentment. Mulder fed change into the other vending machine until it yielded a pack of cheese crackers and a candy bar stiff from cold. It would be half-melted soon enough, Scully knew, in the heat of the car. They'd pass it back and forth, sticky fingers brushing. 

She followed Mulder's bright shoulders back to the car with its uncertain systems. They'd try to trade it in when they got to town, or they'd spend the week sweating together. Either way, she'd remember this place. On the way out, she traced the line of the highway with her fingertips across the map. "You are here," it assured her, an anchor in a strange land.


End file.
